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Inter Blockchain
Communication
As of 2023, there are thousands of public and private blockchains in existence, each with its unique use cases and capabilities.
But, have you ever wondered why it is so difficult
to do transactions between blockchains?
Even when you use cross-chain bridges, there is still the possibility of failure... leaving you wondering what went wrong.
What could have happened
between these blockchains?
In order to conduct cross-chain transactions, blockchains must communicate and agree on the terms.
Unfortunately, their incompatibility prevents them from doing so....
....forcing them to rely on third-party providers.
However, even these providers may run into troubles when
trying to connect with other blockchains....
....as a result, transactions fail, leaving us puzzled.
In fact, cross-chain bridges have lost over
$2 billion through hacks in 2022.
That’s frustrating but still a general norm in Web3…
Individually, blockchains are highly secured,
transparent, and immutable.
However, when viewed as a whole, they often fail
to communicate with each other.
But what if this fragmented communication
could be mended?....
....and made blockchains to communicate efficiently
without relying on any third-party provider?
It creates secure connections between blockchains by
establishing IBC channels on each side.
Once the connection is established, data is placed into packets
and transferred from the sender blockchain to the receiver.
The receiver blockchain's channel verifies the packets based on
specific rules and sends an acknowledgement back to the sender blockchain.
Thus, IBC helps blockchains to transfer any data in a
secure & trustless way.
Since its launch in 2021, the protocol has been adopted by more than 50 Cosmos chains resulting in over 50 million cross-chain transfers worth
approximately $30 billion.
Although IBC was created by the Cosmos, it is not exclusive to it. Other ecosystems, including Ethereum, Polkadot, and Near, are also developing creative IBC applications to integrate them.